How to Prevent the Coronavirus From Infecting Your Mental Health

Hunkered down and feeling down? That’s what most of us are doing and are feeling sometimes.

With orders to stay at home and to stay away from people, even your friends and some members of your own family, these are difficult times for us all.

But this week, we got some good advice from someone whose job is to know what to do to reduce our stress, anxiety and depression. Maybe you heard some of his advice during our interview this week with Dr. Luke Bergmann who’s the director behavioral health services for San Diego County.

He says that while we are doing things to stay physically healthy, we also need to do things to stay mentally healthy. Exercising for mental health is just as important as exercising for physical health.

And he says one way to exercise for mental health is by limiting your intake of news about the coronavirus, while still staying informed enough so you don’t stress out about things that aren’t true.

What’s also important is staying connected to your family and friends by phone, video, emails, texts or whatever it takes to not allow yourself to be cut off and feeling even more isolated. Staying connected helps you and the people with whom you are connecting.

And it also can help you know if a loved one or friend could even use some help from a professional. There is a 24 hour mental health hot line: 888-724-72-40.That’s 888-724-2240,